In what could be the first -44kg gold for a long time, Miam Salvador of University of Santo Tomas won it over Regine Laudino of University of the East in dominating fashion, Wednesday at the La Salle Greenhills St. Benilde Gym.
Despite a small field of six judoka, the weight division lacked no action. In the quarterfinals, Camille Cadorna of De La Salle University took care of Alexis Belen of UST in the first match to reach the semifinals. Her teammate Andrea Lim, however, was not as fortunate. Jeanalane Lopez of UE upended Lim at the 1:24 mark of their Last Eight contest.
Laudino and Salvador took advantage of their byes into the semifinals and dominated Cadorna and Lopez respectively in the Final Four. Laudino booked her place in the Final after sneaking an ippon with 37 seconds left in the match. Salvador, on the other hand, had a faster disposal of Lopez after a throw two minutes into the match.
Quarterfinal antagonists Belen and Cadorna took the bronze medals for the division. Belen followed up her teammate Salvador’s win over Lopez with a waza-ari awesete ippon victory (two waza-ari). In the other match, Cadorna pulled through against Lim in an all-La Salle bronze medal match.
